Asylum seeker adviser quits

Date: December 14 2012

Michael Gordon

ONE of Australia's leading mental health experts has quit the Gillard government's advisory council on asylum seekers and detention after more than a decade, citing plans to indefinitely deny work rights to thousands of recent arrivals as ''the last straw''.

Professor Harry Minas says the gap between his own views on how Australia should honour its international obligations and the direction of policy in recent months has simply become too wide - and continues to widen.

''If I feel that my views are so divergent from the directions that we are heading that I obviously can't be of any real use, the only reasonable thing to do in those circumstances is to resign and say I can't serve in that way,'' Professor Minas said in an exclusive interview with The Age.

He was especially disappointed at the focus on implementing measures aimed at deterring boat arrivals without all the safeguards proposed by the government's expert panel.

''The thing that is so disheartening about it is that there is no really strong principle underlying decisions,'' he said.

''We know very clearly where the Coalition stands and what they're proposing to do and, in some of the things that have happened, particularly in recent months, the current government has accepted that they are going to be no different.''

Professor Minas said the intention to deny refugees work rights under the ''no advantage'' principle was worse than the Coalition's support for temporary protection visas. ''The kind of disregard that that represents for both the wellbeing of those directly affected and the long-term consequences for them and health system is astounding.''

Professor Minas, who is the director of the Centre for International Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, told Immigration Minister Chris Bowen of his decision this week. He has also told the chairman of the council, Paris Aristotle, a member of the expert panel. Mr Aristotle said Professor Minas had made ''an outstanding contribution throughout the most difficult periods in this policy area for more than a decade''.

Although he had considered resigning several times over the years, Professor Minas said he had resisted because he felt that ''on balance'' he was able to influence outcomes for the better.

After 20 years of mandatory detention, things had only got worse, with competition between the major parties to see ''who can be the more hard-arsed'' and no suggestion there was going to be ''any really creative thinking about how to deal with a big problem''.

He said one of his major frustrations was the inconsistency between the call for regional burden sharing and moves to avoid international obligations by excising the mainland from the migration zone.

''It's treating our neighbours as if they're idiots, as if they can't see what's happening, [but] the Indonesian leadership is pretty smart.

''It's a sophisticated country. They can see what's happening very clearly.''

Another was the cost of detention. ''We spend billions of dollars on building and running detention centres. If we had spent the last 20 years on actually putting that kind of money into working on the regional approach we are talking about now, we might be well down the track.''

He welcomed additional mental health support on Nauru and at other facilities, but said: ''You create a set of arrangements that tip already vulnerable people over the edge, and then say, 'No problem, we've got a mental health team here to look after you when that happens.' It's not a sensible way to go.''

He would continue to work on the mental health of asylum seekers and on developing mental health systems in places where they did not exist, and would ''explore other ways I might be able to make a contribution''.